


watch me run right back to you

by Ralph_E_Silvering



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthurian Legend References, F/M, Jenny of Oldstones references, Jon as a Ranger, One-Sided Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, Pol!Jon, Post-8x06 Fix-It, Post-Canon, Queen in the North, The King Beyond the Wall, The Lord of the Rings References, kingmaker, kissed by fire, lemons and lemon cakes, the power of stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-03-20 02:21:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralph_E_Silvering/pseuds/Ralph_E_Silvering
Summary: Three times Jon and Sansa almost kiss…and three times they actually do.





	1. Sansa

**Author's Note:**

> So, that last episode…. made no sense to me. And here’s my attempt to fix it! Sansa POV the first half and Jon POV the second half. Starts during Season 6 and continues after Season 8.

***

  

The wind is never silent or still at the Wall. It howls and clamors and freezes the very blood in her veins. Sansa is sure she’s known cold, sure she’d freeze to death in her flight from Winterfell and Ramsay, clad in nothing but a light cloak and doused in an icy river on top of it, but she had been wrong. Very wrong.

The Wall is cold.

She understands now, why the smallfolk say that men on the Wall were hard as stone, as hard and as cold as the ice of their Wall. She understands why her Uncle Benjen rarely smiled and always watched their play at Winterfell with a stern, uncompromising gaze despite the fierce joy he’d exhibited every time he’d returned home. It takes every bit of energy a person has just to survive here, in an environment where everything is trying to kill you.

But Jon is warm.

He is warm, and he is alive, and he is here, with her. And she still can’t quite believe it.

She shifts a bit, attempting to get even closer to him on the narrow cot, to his warmth, and he makes an indiscernible noise, low in his throat, as he moves in the restless sleep he’s finally fallen into. He shifts and murmurs again, and she can’t help but reach up, run her hands soothingly through dark curls loose and spread around him like a halo.

Her brother. Jon Snow. The Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. 

He has given her a private room at Castle Black, with Brienne in the adjourning room, and in view of his own quarters. He even set Ghost to watch over her, a silent, white shadow – white as snow – guarding her even as she slept.

But sleep had not come, not even with how exhausted she’s been, with how late they’ve stayed up talking, just the two of them, the last of the Starks. She’d lain in that small, hard bed, listening to the wind moaning down from the Wall, and could not sleep. Wrapped in Jon’s cloak, with Jon’s direwolf a soft, comforting presence at the foot of her bed, she’d still longed for her brother.

She has spent years believing she would never see anyone she loved ever again. Now that she is with Jon, she feels a powerful, almost visceral, reluctance to let him out of her sight ever again.

She knows he doesn’t sleep either, not after what they did to him. So, she had risen from her bed, thrown his cloak over the loose, black men’s robe the Head Steward, Eddison Tollett had found for her, and gone to his chambers. Ghost had padded silently alongside her, his red eyes glowing in the darkness.

Edd, who was Jon’s friend, had been standing watch with a couple of men and he had nodded at her as she’d passed. “Please tell Brienne where I’ve gone, if she asks,” she told him. There was only one place she could have been going to after all.

Jon had still been awake, the lights in his chambers glowing soft and golden. She’d knocked and he’d let her in, alarmed at first, until she’d told him she just couldn’t sleep.

He had let her stay without having to explain after that, and she’d curled up in his bed, watching him work at his desk, or pace before the fire. His dark, curly hair was loose and unbound at that point, and he’d finally removed the leather armor. Clad in just loose shirt and britches, he’d looked…soft, gentle. So unlike every other man she’d ever known, except their father.

He ran a hand through his hair, looking worn, looking tired.

“Come, Jon. You need to sleep too.” And she’d held out a hand to him, from under the firs.

Those dark eyes had flicked to hers, something conflicted and tormented in his gaze, but he’d let her tug him to the bed, remained pliant as she snuggled into his arms, her face buried in the hollow of his throat where she felt safe. 

He brushed her hair out of his face before slowly, hesitantly wrapping his arms around her, as though afraid to startle her if he moved too fast. Waiting for her to decide before he made any moves. _Like you do with wild animals,_ Sansa had thought, wildly, _or maybe storms_.

She herself had thought she would freeze then, muscles remembering Ramsay’s embraces, Littlefinger’s possessive eyes and the kisses she’d never asked for, Tyrion’s lustful gaze and even Joffrey’s delight in shaming her, stripping her, before the Court.

But she didn’t. All she felt was Jon, his quiet breaths, his warm, strong arms, the smell of him – sweat and leather and a cold, clean smell, like the North in winter. She relaxed against him, fingers clenched tightly in his shirt so he couldn’t disappear on her, and she could feel the short exhalation of surprise he gave at her response, the way he clutched her just a little bit tighter in his arms.

She’d fallen asleep quickly, deeply, for the first time she could remember in many moons.

Now though, she is awake, bracing herself on her elbows as she looks down at him. He is a handsome man. She knows this now, having seen the finest scions of the noble houses of Westeros during her time in King’s Landing. Jon would put them all to shame. There is something pretty about him, something almost delicate – although perhaps that’s not the right word, not masculine enough. For Jon is definitely a man. She can feel the evidence of that against her thigh.

 _A normal reaction,_ she reminds herself. _Nothing to do with me._

She watches him breathe; lips parted slightly in sleep. The crease between his eyes that never seems to go away. He would be cross if he knew she thought him pretty, and she almost smiles.

She reaches up a hand and gently cards it through those wild, silky curls of his again. She’d thought him the most beautiful man she’d ever seen as he stood above her on the stairs that morning, the snow in his dark hair and dressed entirely in Stark colors. Family.

She’d foolishly believed she wouldn’t recognize him after all these years. Would he recognize her? But she'd turned and seen him standing there – _her_ brother – and known herself for a fool. She would have recognized him anywhere.

And the shock on his face when he saw her, that desperate, unbelieving hope…

He hadn’t reached out and grabbed her of course. Not Jon. Still afraid he had no right to. But she’d flown at him, arms wide, knowing he would catch her, remembering all the times Arya had hurled herself into his arms and he’d laughed, spinning her around.

And he’d scooped her up as though she was still a little girl, arms tight and warm and safe around her, warm cheek pressed against her own, chilled, one. And for the first time since she’d gone South, all those years ago, Sansa Stark was happy.

She is happy. She traces her fingers gently down his cheek, across the bridge of his nose, watching his eyelids flutter, amazed that he is here with her. _Gods he’s beautiful._ The wind howls on. Over by the low-burning, crackling fire, Ghost lifts up his head and stares at her, red eyes like the leaves of the weirwood tree in the Godswood.

Sansa bites her lip, hesitating, before brushing the pad of her finger lightly over Jon’s lips. They part at her touch, a quiet, almost inaudible sigh escaping him.

She’s not sure if it’s relief at seeing a member of her family, after all these years…or if she’d find him beautiful no matter where they were, no matter who they were to each other, brother and sister or not.

But for a moment, a single moment, with her finger skating over his bottom lip, she considers bending down the slightest bit, pressing her own lips to his and feeling the warmth, the life, the love of him. She’s felt so cold, for so long.

And then Jon’s eyes open, dark and intense. “Are you alright?” he rasps, looking at her in concern, seeming to take in all of her at a single glance.

She realizes that there are tears on her cheeks, but she attempts a smile for him, to show him that there is nothing wrong. He raises up a hand to brush against her skin, the rough pads of his fingers indescribably gentle as he attempts to brush those traitorous drops of water and salt away.

Her eyes close and her smile turns tremulous. Weak, foolish girl, she scolds herself, hiding herself in Jon’s throat again. _You need to be stronger. He needs you to be stronger_. She feels the deep gashes in his chest and stomach against her body with how tightly they are pressed together. _You have to protect him._

“I’m alright now,” she tells him, as his arms go around her once more, his chin on the top of her head.

 _I’ll protect you;_ she promises him silently. _Always._

 

***

 

It feels like every fortnight since Jon was crowned King in the North ends with another feast given in Winterfell’s Great Hall.

It’s foolish, she knows. Winter has been upon them for many years, their food supplies are desperately low, and the last of the Bolton holdouts are still being dealt with. This is not the time for feasting. Her lord father and lady mother would never have wasted such precious resources on hosting the various lords and ladies of the North at Winterfell with the army of the dead threatening them beyond the Wall. 

But her time in King’s Landing has taught her differently. Life is a story, a show. If you don’t give people hope, give them joy, give them something positive to talk about – and if you don’t show your strength – then a king will not last very long.

Jon is a king. She can see it in the way he talks, the way he holds himself, the way he listens to every single problem people come to him with. She sees it in the way he works himself to the bone, repairing Winterfell’s walls, rebuilding the broken towers, organizing the workers in overhauling the defenses. He doesn't see it. He doesn't want to see it. But she does. 

She sees it in the way the Northeners love him.

Ned Stark’s son. The Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. The greatest swordsman in the Realm.

She sees him show mercy to those who fought against them, or those – many more of those – who refused to either help or hinder their fight against the Boltons. She watches him unify the North, an almost impossible political task after Robb’s defeat and House Bolton’s usurpation, and she learns.

Watching Jon lead is different from watching Littlefinger manipulate, or Cersei command, or Joffrey tyrannize. It’s a little like watching Lady Olenna and Margaery – her beloved Margaery – get the people of King’s Landing to support the throne. But where the Tyrell women were elegance and sweetness hiding minds of cunning, ambitious brilliance…Jon is honorable and good and seeks only to save his people.

She understands why the North loves him. She does. But her eyes still follow him with worry, remembering the fate of good kings, honorable kings, and every king that failed to see the knife in the dark. 

She knows Littlefinger watches him too and she worries about that as well. He tries to drive a wedge between them, but Sansa has no interest in anything he has to say about Jon, and Jon is far too wise to listen to a man like Petyr Baelish.

She sits at the High Table and watches Alys Karstark attempt to whirl Jon around in a dance. The red-haired northern girl’s long, plain face is alight with merriment, making her look like a beauty in the flickering candlelight.

Jon, her handsome, reserved brother, looks uncomfortable even as he smiles gently at Lady Karstark. He is particularly striking tonight, in the new, dark tunic and cape she’d sewn for him, those tall boots going up his calves and his dark hair brushed neatly on either side of his face, long, just as she likes it. Two, silver direwolves clasp the cape closed at his throat and the fabric, contrasted with his pale skin and dark hair, make him look….

His eyes crinkle at the corner and he throws his head back in laughter at something the wildling chief, Tormund, says as he gallops through the hall with one of Winterfell’s maids hanging on for dear life in his arms.

Sansa smiles. It’s good to see him happy. 

Wylla Manderly, one of old Lord Manderly’s granddaughter’s, is grinning mischievously at Jon as she tugs him back into the circle of eligible Northern young women. The girl’s green hair reminds Sansa of something Arya would do, though Wylla’s quick feet and flashing skirts, her perfect steps in the dance, are the opposite of Arya and make several heads turn in their direction.

The girls are laughing, and Sansa can see lords and ladies glancing at, and then away again, the knot of noblewomen and king with contemplation in their eyes. Everyone wants their daughter to wed the king, she thinks cynically, taking another large sip of her ale.

And Jon…any woman would be lucky to have Jon.

None of the men, young or otherwise, have approached her tonight. They never do. Tales of her marriage to Ramsay, of what he’d done to her, and her marriage to Tyrion Lannister before him, have spread too far to make her a desirable match for any lord. Despite the fact that she is a Stark and the king’s sister.  

“Sansa?”

Jon is next to her, face flushed with alcohol and dancing, one hand extended. His eyes are cautious, watchful, and there is that warmth in them he always has when he looks at her – as though she is something precious.

Only Jon never treats her differently.

“Would you like to dance?” he asks her now, hand still extended. Winterfell’s hall has been festooned with pine and fir branches. The candlelight at every table and the roaring fireplace behind her bathe the stone room in reddish-gold hues. Outside the windows, soft flakes of white snow drift past and at her chair a handsome king is asking her to dance. It all seems…magical.

She is reminded of snow castles, an untouched winter wonderland and the wind howling through the pass in the Eyrie, like a ghost wolf big as mountains.

She tries to sound cynical even as she can’t look away from his dark eyes. “With you?” she teases, remembering Robb and Jon and Theon fumbling along with the steps Septa Mordane tried to teach them, Arya laughing until she turned red as they tripped over one another.

Jon grins. “I’ve gotten much better since then,” he promises her, knowing exactly what she has been thinking.

“Don’t believe him! Jon Snow can’t dance!” Tormund yells, galloping past again. The Northern lords are scandalised by him, but Sansa remembers his fierce loyalty to Jon and trusts the Wildling chief to guard Jon’s back more than almost any other.

She smiles up at Jon, placing her hand lightly in his, and sees him swallow, his eyes flicking down to where two hands clasp before he meets her eyes again and pulls her to her feet. 

They dance in the center of the Great Hall, Sansa just slightly taller than Jon. He counteracts her height by leaning slightly backwards and spins her out and then pulls her back in close to him, her skirts and hair flaring around her, until she lands back in his arms. She is laughing, breathless, feeling color blooming in her cheeks at the exertion. 

The steps are not northern, not courtly, but something wild and free he seems to have picked up from the Free Folk. She wonders if he danced with his kissed-by-fire lover this way…and she hopes so. Jon deserves every happy memory he can get.

They are both laughing now, bodies flush together as he catches her in his arms one last time. His eyes are bright, brighter than she’s ever seen them, and they roam over her face as though he is drinking her in.

Sansa winds her arms around his neck, swaying with him as the last of the music dies away. And then it’s just them, their quick breaths, the way Sansa’s fingers are playing with the back of his curls, the way Jon’s hands skate up and down her back.

They are too close. She knows this. She knows the northern court is watching them, but Jon is all hard planes and warmth against her body, and he reaches up with ineffable tenderness to stroke a fiery piece of hair back from her sweaty forehead.

“My beautiful sister,” he murmurs, and her eyes fall to his mouth, even as she bites her lower lip and sways closer to him – a moth to his flame. She closes her eyes, feels his breath ghosting across her lips –

Tormund claps Jon hard on the back, startling them both. “Been awhile since I’ve seen you do that,” the big man booms.

Sansa’s eyes fly open and meet Jon’s dark gaze. He looks…shocked, regretful, embarrassed –

She lets him go and hurriedly steps back. The eyes of the court are still upon them. She sweeps him her lowest, most perfect curtsey. “I thank you for the dance, my king,” she murmurs. 

And flees

***

 

If she had known Jon would fall for Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, she would never have let him go South.

Sansa knows she is being irrational, jealous, petty…but she doesn’t trust the Dragon Queen. Every alarm bell in her head is going off as she compares the Targaryen woman to Joffrey, to Cersei, to Ramsay in his possessive, dominating treatment of Jon.

That she forces Jon to always be subservient to her, that he calls her his Queen all the time, that she has made him no offer of marriage but seems to expect him to constantly attend to her, that she demands he bend the knee to her…all of these make Sansa uneasy. 

As does the way she treats the Northmen – as though she deserves their loyalty by default. As though what they want, what they fought for, what they _died_ for doesn’t matter. All that matters to her is the Iron Throne, is being Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

And having Jon obsessed with her apparently.

Yes, Sansa admits that Daenerys Targaryen helped them win the Long Night. But at what cost? If she claimed to be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, then it was her duty to help the North anyway…but she hadn’t planned to help until she fell in love with Jon.

 _Jon’s war_ , she calls it.

Even Stannis had done his duty and gone to hold the Wall against Mance Rayder and the Wildlings. And he had been another ruler who claimed to be the one true king.

Jon has been…. almost Jon again tonight. Another feast. Another candlelit hall. The Night King defeated. Arya proclaimed a hero.

And Jon has smiled again. As he hasn’t since he’s returned to Winterfell. She never sees him smile in the presence of his Dragon Queen, for all that everyone keeps telling her they are madly in love with each other.

She thinks Jon might be in love with her. Men do stupid things for women, especially beautiful women. And Jon has too kind a heart to sleep with a woman without trying to do the honorable thing and offer to marry her.

But Sansa also thinks, sometimes, occasionally, that Jon might not be in love with her. That he might have agreed to be with her in order to get her, and her armies, to come North. Sansa has never seen Jon in love, but he looks at Daenerys Targaryen too warily, too unsure, too watchful of her next move for her to say with certainty that he loves her.

There’s no adoration there. There is respect perhaps. There is…awe, but then again who wouldn’t be in awe of a woman who could hatch dragons out of stone?

 _Who manipulated whom_? The Dragon Queen had asked her, not seeming to realize the double edge to her words.

Perhaps she is just rationalizing everything, and Jon bent the knee simply because he loved her. Without caring what Sansa thought, or how the North felt… 

No, she will not believe that of Jon. Even if he loves… _her_ , he would still only do whatever was best for the North.

She has worn a new dress tonight, one reminiscent of dragon scales, and for a while it seems like things are almost normal. The northern lords, the Vale lords and the Wildlings have no fear of Jon. They come up to him to talk and joke and offer him their opinions on everything. Tormund eggs Jon into a drinking competition and Sansa can only look on as Jon smiles, body turned unconsciously towards her, face relaxed in a way she hasn’t seen in a long time.

He sits on the High Table and his leg brushes her thigh, her entire body on fire just from that small touch. He doesn’t seem to notice, and Sansa does not move, feeling the warmth of him, the nearness of him.

And then he moves to stand and join in the toast, his warmth vanishing, and he’s smiling at _her_ again and Sansa – Gods she’s still such a little fool – she can’t stand seeing him stare at Daenerys Targaryen a second longer.

She leaves, and she tells herself that she doesn’t care if he fails to notice her absence.

But later…later, she stands outside his door, hesitating for an indeterminable moment before raising her hand and knocking.

The halls are mostly silent now, the scones sputtering and long shadows moving up the walls. A guard walks by in his rounds, giving her a curious look and a respectful, “Milady,” as he passes.

Sansa knocks again. Louder.

“Come In.” Jon’s voice, low, slurring.

Drunk. Very drunk, she thinks, pushing open the door and entering. He’s slumped on his bed, staring blankly into the fire. His hair is loose, his leather jerkin half-off as though he lost motivation half-way through.

He glances up at her with dull eyes. “’Lo,” he says, looking entirely dispirited, and her heart breaks a little to see how changed he is from just hours ago. She knows Daenerys has been here already, that Jon sent her away; one of her maids had informed her of such.

She comes to stand before him and tries to smile. “Come,” she says, tugging lightly at his jerkin. “Let’s get this off you and you can get some sleep.” 

He looks up at her, dully, but does not answer.

She tugs harder. “Up, Jon,” she says, slightly more forcefully. He doesn’t move. Sighing, she reaches down and pulls him up

He sways drunkenly, leaning almost entirely onto her, face pressed into the side of her neck. His beard tickles her skin and he chuckles a bit, clasping her elbows to keep from toppling them both over.

Sansa sighs again, trying to act annoyed but knowing she sounds more tolerant than anything else. “You’re not making this easy, Jon,” she says quietly, lips against his ear. She turns, her skin brushed by his curls, and breathes him in.

He shivers against her. “Do I ever?” he asks, perhaps rhetorically.

He tries to step back from her, and she has to grab for him lest he topple back onto the bed again. “That last drink really was a bad idea,” she says, lightly. 

“Tol’ Tormun’” Jon slurs, even as he allows her to raise his arms up while she quickly unlaces the rest of his jerkin and pull it off him.

He slumps back into her arms as the jerkin is tossed across the room. She catches him, lets his face rest on her shoulder for a moment, before she takes his face between her hands and attempts to look him in the eye. 

His pupils are blown wide as he stares at her, his hair loose about his face. He looks completely disheveled, his defenses entirely gone, and she knows this might be her only chance. 

She feels slightly guilty about it, but she tells herself that it’s for the good of the North, the good of their people. He’s going all lone wolf, excluding even Arya and Ser Davos from his confidence, and she refuses to let him get himself killed by being noble.

She has to know. “Do you love her?” she asks him, seriously. “ _Daenerys_ ,” she says, the name tasting like ash in her mouth, when Jon only stares at her uncomprehendingly.

He groans, attempting to pull back but she won’t let him go. “You know me,” he says, hands coming up over hers, gently pulling them down, squeezing them softly before letting her go. “‘lways lovin’ where I shouldn’t.” His northern accent is thicker than ever, and his eyes are strangely intent, strangely clear, as he stares at her.

His breath smells like alcohol – warm and spicy – as it wafts over her, his lips barely a breath from her own. His hand comes up to hook a strand of hair behind her ear, the pads of his fingers releasing the strand slowly, before skating softly over the shell of her ear, the barest brush against her cheek.

She’s staring at him, heart pounding, unable to breathe in the sudden fear that this might be a dream. He strokes a finger across her cheek again, seemingly unable to help himself. His touch is ineffably gentle, like she’s made of glass, or is something exquisite and priceless to him. 

“Jon,” she says, her voice hoarse but what she’s asking him for she doesn’t know.

His arm is around her waist, holding her close, his other hand is cupping her cheek, pulling her closer, and she closes her eyes, gripping him anywhere she can reach and feeling the heat of his lips just beyond her own. 

After a moment, a long moment, where she feels the tension in him and nothing else, she opens her eyes.

His own eyes are closed, his face creased in a grimace. Those dark eyes open and she sees the regret in them, the…the pity, and she almost recoils.

He pulls her head down and presses his lips against her forehead. “Trust me, Sansa,” is all he says as he pulls back from her, releases her. “Please trust me.”

 _Trust goes both ways;_ she thinks but does not say. He has enough burdens on him, and if this makes it easier for him – if pushing her aside and clinging to…. her, makes it easier for him – well, she’ll just have to live with it.

Sansa pushes him gently back onto the bed, bending until her lips brush his cheek. “Good night, Jon,” she says, feeling him tense under her lips.

His eyes are hot, a scar on her back as she leaves.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! Part II is Jon’s POV. Thanks so much for reading!


	2. Jon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the likes and wonderful comments! They are the hope and prayer of every writer, lol! Here is Part II.

***

 

 

Jon loves the North, the real North; he can finally breathe up here.

Spring came slowly that year, that first year after the Long Night. Jon hadn’t returned to the Wall, to his duties as Lord Commander. He hadn’t seen any point to them with part of the Wall in ruins and the Northern alliance with the Free Folk making a defense against them pointless.

So he’d left, taking the Free Folk back north and remaining with them. They welcomed him as one of their own, never questioned why he was there, and both Tormund and Ghost seemed overjoyed.

Interestingly, after the spring rains and the first houses began to be rebuilt at Hardhome, men of the Night’s Watch began to join him, deserting the Wall as well and making their new home among the wildlings they’d once sworn to defend the realm against. 

The Free Folk like to roam, very rarely staying in one place as they follow the herds around, but Jon suspects that will change now that winter has released its grip on these lands. And he, for all that he might have some of the real north in him as Tormund claims, has always been a man of stone keeps and forges and buildings to store grain.

So he builds a small house for himself on the outskirts of Hardhome that first summer, cutting down huge beams of timber from the surrounding forests, one of the Night’s Watch builders helping him with the stone walls, and making it both small, but rather pretty if he does say so himself.

It’s high up on the hills surrounding the small settlement, with a perfect view of the sea.

Trading ships come that first summer, pulling into the deep-water harbor and Jon is hauled out of his home by an insistent Tormund to help the Free Folk negotiate deals for spices and cloth and rich wines from the Arbor in return for furs and meat and seal oil for the lanterns at Oldtown.

Davos comes with them, clapping Tormund on the back and watching Jon with a look in his eyes the former Night’s Watch Commander can’t decipher.

“You’re looking better,” the smuggler from Flea Bottom says in his familiar accent, looking Jon up and down.

“Nothing’s been lit on fire and I haven’t gotten anyone killed recently,” he returns, attempting to make a joke but knowing it comes out harsh, bitter – a ruin of a man.

Davos winces. Behind him the men and women from the Six Kingdoms go about their business unloading their wares but they glance towards the small knot of Davos, Tormund and Jon with awe and wonder in their eyes, and not a little bit of fear. Jon knows it’s mostly for him; Oathbreaker, Queenslayer, Kinslayer, man without honor. A man who would stab a defenseless woman right in the heart as he kissed her.

He turns away. He has nothing more he can give Davos. He fought, and he lost. 

“I heard your sister’s coronation was beautiful,” Davos calls behind him and Jon stops despite himself. Doesn’t turn back but listens.

“The Red Wolf, they’re callin’ her,” Davos continues, sounding relieved that Jon is still listening to him for reasons Jon can’t explain. “Dressed all in silver-white, with fish scales on the bodice of her gown, red leaves from those weirwood trees of yours embroidered on her sleeves, and a half-cloak made of black fur hangin’ off her shoulder. For the siblings who are gone, folk say.”

 _The siblings who left her_ , Jon adds silently, think of Arya far beyond the Western Sea and himself lost in the Far North.

“Her crown was simple silver, with two direwolves meeting in the center,” Davos finishes.

 _Like Robb’s_ , Jon thinks, a pang of longing for his brother hitting him once more. Robb – it should all have been Robb’s. Robb wouldn’t have made such a mess of things.

Davos adds at last. “Down south folk are callin’ her the Winter Queen.” He doesn’t add the other names Jon has heard the Wildlings murmur when they think him unaware; _Wolf Queen. Ice Queen_.

Jon can picture it well; how beautiful Sansa must have looked, how regal and queenly. And how lonely. “Is she happy?” he croaks, still without turning. He can’t bear the pity he knows must be on his former advisor’s face.

Davos’ hesitation tells him more than he wants to know. “King Brandon looks in on her from time to time. He says the castle is mostly empty, the Northeners havin’ returned to their homes.” Another pause. “They want her to marry” – and Jon feels a hard, burning ember of anger flare into life deep in his breast at the effrontery of the Northern lords – “but she claims she will rule alone.”

A part of him he cannot name feels relieved at her choice. He has no right to care what she does any longer.

“It’s her choice,” Jon says. “Thank you…Ser Davos.” And he leaves without looking back.

“…like the song…” he hears Tormund say to Davos, over the lap of the waves on the shores of Hardhome, the calling of the sailors, the quiet murmurs of the Free Folk.  

“If there’s anyone dancin’ with their ghosts,” Davos said, his voice carrying clear to Jon as he struggles up the hill, Ghost at his heals, “it’s that lad there.”

He doesn’t wait for Tormund’s response.  

Jon dreams of Daenerys Targaryen at night, her pride and beauty, the silver-blonde shine of her hair, twisted in braids to show her many victories, and the madness in her eyes at the end.

No, not madness. Something worse than madness. A belief in her own righteousness, her own superiority, which allowed for no dissent, no other opinion, no hint of disagreement. She had been glorious – a conqueror from across the sea. She had been beautiful – a queen of men. And she had been family – a family he had never thought to find.

He had tried to love her when he saw the way she looked at him; tried for the sake of the North. They had needed her men, her armies. It had been a choice between either her or Cersei and – from everything Sansa had ever told him – Jon knew that Cersei Lannister would never keep a promise made to him or House Stark.

So he had needed Daenerys and he had done everything and anything in his power to get her.

But even now, even over a year later, he didn’t know what he felt for the Dragon Queen. He had loved her, after a fashion. He had sworn an oath in her service and had tried his best to keep that oath – no matter what the South thought of him now.

But he had known when he saw the ashes of men, women and children in King’s Landing, that he could not follow her any longer. He had gone to Tyrion Lannister because he knew the dwarf loved the Dragon Queen – that if anyone could talk him out of killing Daenerys Targaryen, it would be him. But Tyrion had told him – begged him – to end her reign. For the good of the realms of men, he’d said – the first oath Jon had ever sworn and the one he’d returned from death to keep.

And then Tyrion had named his worst fear, the one he’d hoped was only a result of his own paranoia – that Daenerys would now turn on his sisters, on Sansa and Arya, and raze Winterfell to the ground for their defiance.

His dreams always end with a dagger plunged into Dany’s heart, as he watches the betrayal and heartbreak in her eyes. She had loved him, had even trusted him after her fashion, and he had betrayed her. For love of his sisters. For the fact that he couldn’t bear the thought of Dany harming Sansa, her rival for Jon’s affections. Had either of those women known how he truly felt in those last days? Jon can’t say he knows himself.

But perhaps he’d never loved Daenerys Targaryen after all – because how could he do that to someone he loved?

No matter what they did, Jon could never, _would_ never, kill Sansa or Arya. Never.

He wakes every night, his mouth tasting like ash and blood, seeing over and over kissed-by-fire hair blending into hair the pure-white color of the hottest part of a flame. _Did you bend the knee to save the North…or because you love her?_

He sees Sansa dead and Winterfell in ruins as Daenerys laughs amid the inferno and selfishly, selfishly, in the deepest, darkest part of him, he is relieved King’s Landing burned instead – that the realm saw who Daenerys Targaryen was without the North being harmed by her fire.

 _The Targaryens answered to neither gods nor men_ , he remembers Lady Catelyn saying once, long ago, when Bran had asked her about Robert’s Rebellion.

 _There was a taint of madness and cruelty in the Targaryen line_ , Maester Luwin told him and Robb and Theon.

He tries to remember anything his father – Ned Stark – said about the Targaryens, but he can’t remember anything. His father had never seemed to stare at him differently than his other children though, as though searching for signs of Targaryen madness. So perhaps…

 _Madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin_ , Maester Aemon told Samwell Tarly once, when Jon had been sent by Lord Commander Mormont to search for a particular volume in Castle Black’s modest library. The old Maester’s voice was as shriveled and dry as winter leaves. _There is a saying in my family that every time a new Targaryen is born the gods toss the coin in the air and the entire world holds it breath to see how it will land._ Jon had thought this a tragic thing to believe in any family.

 _We are the last of Old Valyria_ , Maester Aemon had explained sadly. _The Maesters believe that Valyria had been a place of advancement and wonder, the greatest empire the world has ever known. And all greatness is marred by tragedy._

Jon thinks of Daenerys and Aegon the Conqueror, Rhaenyra the half-year queen and Maegor the Cruel, Visenya the warrior and Aegon the Fifth, Daemon the Rogue Prince, Daena the Defiant, mother of Daemon Blackfyre, and even his own father, Rhaegar Targaryen, the Last Dragon.

 _You are half Stark_ , he reminds himself, every time he wakes from the dreams of fire and blood, shirt drenched in sweat and Ghost watching him with unblinking red eyes. _You are Lyanna Stark’s son. Ned Stark raised you as his own._

 _Children are not their parents,_ Tyrion Lannister had said, but Daenerys Targaryen had proven to be all-too-clearly her father’s daughter.

Was he bound by this fate, this madness, as well? _Half-Targaryen_ he reminds himself.

During the worst nights, the ones where he drinks himself into a stupor to forget, he thinks of Sansa, singing softly to herself as she brushes out Lady’s fur, and Ygritte’s wry, mocking voice: _You know nothing, Jon Snow._

He really does know nothing.

Sansa had loved the old tales of Aemon the Dragonknight, and his unending devotion to his sister, Queen Naerys, and Duncan, Prince of Dragonflies, and the Northern girl he’d married in defiance of custom, Jenny of Oldstones.

Sometimes he sleeps then, thinking of Sansa dancing in Winterfell’s Great Hall, her red hair, like the leaves of the weirwood tree, flowing out behind her, as winter snows fall in a ruined castle.

The Free Folk start coming to him with their problems, only one or two at first, asking him to solve a dispute between neighbors or settle which one had rights to which hunting ground or woman (Jon wisely let the woman choose in these instances). Then more come until at last, there is at least one person every day waiting patiently outside his door in the mornings. At first Jon is confused by this. He is a disgraced Lord Commander, a bastard of the South.

“They think you’ll be fair,” Tormund tells him, scratching Ghost under the chin. Tormund’s eldest daughter has accepted the proposal of a man from a different tribe and Tormund has invited Jon to the celebration – the Free Folk aren’t keen on weddings – the second summer after the Long Night.

“Why?” Jon asks, honestly confused. He looks around him at the stone buildings of the former Night’s Watch men, the wooden dwellings of the wildlings, the square that is rapidly appearing around Hardhome’s meeting house as the Free Folk realize that ships are now coming regularly to trade with them.

There are so few of the Free Folk left. Hundreds of tribes speaking dozens of languages, Mance had said. Now there are only a few hundred left. All because they’d followed Jon Snow.

Tormund shakes his head, looking weary. “They’re alive because of you, Jon Snow,” he says.

Sansa makes an official visit to Hardhome one summer three years after the Long Night. Jon takes a boat across the Shivering Sea and vanishes into the Haunted Forest before she can arrive, but Ghost won’t follow him. He returns at the end of autumn to discover several pairs of new clothes waiting for him on his bed, some emblazoned with direwolves, others in deep black, as well as a new leather jerkin of Stark brown.

There is a dried and pressed blue winter rose placed on a square piece of parchment on his simple, wooden table. _Don’t feel like you can’t come home_ , it reads in Sansa’s lovely handwriting.

He waits for her to arrive the next summer, watching as the small boat carrying her and her retinue near the shore. The Free Folk are gathered behind him. They have persuaded him to attend their monthly meetings in the hall now, even though he says little.

He knows they call him their King amongst themselves and the traders that arrive regularly from the Reach, from Dorne, from across the Narrow Sea, have taken to calling him the King Beyond the Wall.

He thinks about fleeing before the Queen in the North can arrive, but he dreams of Sansa, fractured dreams of startling vividness, at night and…he has to see her. Just once more.

She steps from the rocking boat, dressed in a long silver-grey dress, with a blue winter rose woven into her bright hair, and her eyes instantly find him.

He can’t look away. She is as beautiful as he remembers, but there is something rigid about her, like a frozen lake in the middle of summer. Her eyes are a cold, pale blue for all that she smiles kindly at the guard who helps her onto the dock.

He can see her take a deep breath from here before she begins to walk towards him.

He has to clench his fists together to keep from running to her, but Ghost has no such compunctions. Bounding over to her, he jumps around like a dog not a wolf, until she smiles and rubs him soothingly behind the ears. She bends over and whispers something to him before continuing up to Jon.

Her eyes never leave his face.

He thinks about kneeling before her; she is glorious in the late afternoon sunshine, blazing and bright and she makes him feel alive in a way he hasn’t felt in years. But the Free Folk are restlessly milling behind his back, looking on with interest, and he knows a King should never kneel before a Queen.

They are two nations meeting for all that they are also family.

He tries to smile at her reassuringly all the same, preparing to reach over and take her hand for a courtly kiss, when she halts before him. Her eyes seem to drink him and a shadow crosses those pale, blue orbs and then there, _there_ , is the first chink in the ice of her eyes. A desperate, disbelieving hope.

She takes a ragged breath and then she hurls herself into his arms. He staggers beneath her weight, reflexively wrapping his arms tight around her waist even as she buries her face into the top of his shoulder, her own arms clasped around his neck.

He breathes in the scent of her, something light and citrusy, and closes his eyes as the feel of her soft hair brushes featherlight across his face. Her heart is pounding against his own.

“Sansa,” he says, his voice low, wrenched out of him, and she laughs.

“You’re really here,” she whispers, for his ears alone.

He swallows down the sudden emotion, cursing himself for running, for hiding, for leaving her. He has made enough mistakes without tainting her reign with the shadow of a Queenslayer…but he thinks now that it is his absence which has hurt most.

 _I wasn’t ready_ , he wants to tell her. _I’m still not._ But he remains silent. He can still smell the charred flesh, the ash of King’s Landing. The woman who had been grabbed by the Northman as he tried to violate her. Her screams and her fear. The sound of the bells ringing in surrender. The sound of dragon wings, like the beating of the earth itself, a herald of death. Children, little children, screaming as they burned.

His dreams of Sansa, burned and screaming, and he clutches her tightly to him.

He realizes he’s breathing too fast, his hands like vises around her, when he registers Sansa’s cool, soothing voice telling him everything is alright. Her fingers are light and distracting as she brushes them across his forehead, down his cheek.

“I’m right here,” she tells him quietly, her eyes, her blue, sweet eyes, no longer ice, are taking in every shadow passing across his face. That mind of hers, always thinking, assessing, calculating, is moving through thoughts faster than Jon can follow.

He stumbles back from her, head bowed. “Welcome to the Far North, my Que – … sis – … Sansa.” He blunders through his words, feels Tormund watching him with concern. He tries to think of something else to say, can only remember the feel of her in his arms, the smell of her, the sound of her voice after all these years.

It’s too much. He turns and she does not call him back.

The next summer she comes with the trading ships in the Spring. Her guard stays on the ship at night, but Sansa stays with Jon, in his little house. She fills the small space with wildflowers and various bits of women’s clothing and as the days pass, she is less a queen and more a girl – as she had been in her youth.

He loves watching her smile, the way the ice around her melts the longer she is there with him.

She says little and Jon even less, but he finds himself watching her, watching as the Free Folk seem to take to her as one of their own, listening to her as they do, inexplicably, to him. He wakes in the morning and watches the sunlight hit her fiery hair, the place smelling of flowers and lemon cake, and the birds singing out the window. In the distance comes the sound of the Sea, the Free Folk calling to one another, a horse whinnying, small children shrieking with laughter.

And he wonders if this is what peace feels like.

The night before the Queen in the North is due to sail back to White Harbor, there is a feast of sorts in Hardhome’s main square. Food is placed on long tables in the Meeting Hall and all the doors are thrown open to let in the balmy summer air. Sansa, her maids, and several other wildling women – including several Jon recognizes as Craster’s daughters and wives – have spent the past several days weaving flower chains and decorating both the hall and the square.

The effect is magnificent.

Everyone comes in their finest, the wine and mead and ale are all flowing – even Tormund’s fermented yak’s milk – and one or two of the wildlings are even musical, striking up tunes both familiar and strange and even sad and forlorn.

Jon finds a position towards the edge of the square, along a fence decorated with ribbons and flowers, and watches the proceedings. Steadily nursing his drink, which is replenished by several of the women, and with Ghost as silent sentinel at his side, he watches as both the Free Folk, Sansa’s northerners and the sailors and traders from the South, eat, drink and make merry.

There is even chaotic dancing, with Tormund whisking Sansa up in his arms to whirl her around the square. Jon sees several of Winterfell’s guards grasp for non-existent sword hilts at this point, but their queen is laughing, her hair coming undone and her cheeks bright with merriment.

Several of them look to him for confirmation and Jon, surprised, nods at them to let them know it’s alright. If Sansa was unhappy with Tormund’s exuberant attentions, she would make herself known in no uncertain terms.

Tormund’s freedom with the Northern queen seems to have broken the ice, for Wildling boys tumble over themselves to ask Sansa to dance after that.

Jon stays where he is, watching as dusk falls and the stars appear one by one. Fires and lanterns are lit, and the festivities continue. Jon steadily drinks, knows that he is being surly and uncommunicative, even rude towards the young women that ask him to dance.

But all he can do is watch Sansa, laughing, joyful, more beautiful than he’s ever seen her. She’s happy…and he wishes that was enough, it should be enough, but there’s a hollow sort of feeling under his breastbone, a churning in his stomach like he’s coming down sick with something.

Sansa, still laughing, stumbles to his side. She hasn’t eaten anything, and the dancing and alcohol have made her slightly loose, free, relaxed in a way she usually isn’t. She presses herself against his side and he has to hold her there to keep them both from tumbling over.

“Dance with me,” she says, pleads, looking at him in the rising moonlight. Her face is flushed, eyes bright, lips slightly parted as she breathes and Jon feels his heart beating, his breath catching as he gazes at her. For a moment he thinks that…

But no, it could never be. She’s his sister, his _little_ sister. And she’s been hurt over and over again by men. The last person she needs to worry about inspiring feelings of lust in is her brother.

Whatever feelings she has, it’s just because they were pushed together so closely for so long, and he was the first man in years to treat her with kindness without seeking to use her…

And even if…. well, he’s a fugitive now, a man without a home, without honor, an Oathbreaker and a Queenslayer. A kinslayer. Sansa deserves someone, _anyone_ , else.

“Jon,” she says, hushed, almost pressed against him. _Gods she’s too close._ The heat of her in the cool, summer night air is tantalizing.

She licks her lips and he is helpless to prevent himself from following the movement, her lips glistening wetly in the firelight. “Jon,” she says again, even closer, her hands sliding into his hair. He makes some sort of noise, helpless under her touch as always, and tries to step back but the fence is in the way. 

“Sing for us, Lady Sansa!” someone calls from back in the circle of firelight.

“Yes, sing!” Others take up the call.

Sansa steps back from Jon. He feels his heart pounding, knows his eyes are wide with sudden fear, and there is sadness and remorse in her eyes, sudden contrition. He knows what she thinks, that he is still heartbroken over _her_. The Dragon Queen.

“Jon,” her voice is quivering now. “I’m so sorry,” and she leaves him standing there, foolish and alone, and more aroused than he’s ever been in his life.

He can’t stay here any longer. In the sudden silence as Sansa walks into the firelight, he slinks away, Ghost a shadow at his side. Her low, sweet voice lilts after him, ineffably sad:

 

_High in the halls of the kings who are gone,_

_Jenny would dance with her ghosts_

_The ones she had lost and the ones she had found_

_And the ones who had loved her the most…_

 

He is still awake when she returns to his small house in the early hours of the morning. Hesitantly she pushes open the door and he raises his head from where he’d been leaning on his hand, contemplating all the ways Ned Stark would be disappointed in him.

She tries to smile at him, unsure of her welcome, and Jon hates that she would ever doubt his love for her, no matter what she did.

“I came to say goodbye,” she says, her voice as uncertain as her face. She seems to be steeling herself for something, her hands held too still at her sides, her eyes turning icy. She is also gloriously disheveled, hair and skirts disarrayed, colour still high in her cheeks.

Jon swallows, his eyes caught on her heaving chest. He stands and crosses the distance to her, catching hold of her arms, feeling her still in surprise.

His eyes meet hers, never looking away as he slowly moves his hands up her arms. One hand goes to the back of her neck, to tangle in her glorious mane of red hair, the other cups her cheek as gently as he knows how.

Sansa seems to have stopped breathing and her eyes are wide. She’s trembling in his arms and he knows he should stop, knows he should pull back now and leave her in peace, let whatever is between them die in the ashes of King’s Landing and Daenerys Targaryen’s fire…

 …. but he can’t.

She’s all he’s ever wanted. Slowly, giving her time to pull away from him and run, Jon leans forward and presses his lips to hers.

They’re both trembling now, that first kiss just an awkward brushing of lips, until Sansa whimpers and presses herself to him, hands clenching in the back of his shirt as she angles her head and kisses him back.

She fits against him perfectly, her curves, the feel of her in his arms, the heat of her. He’s hard, aching with want for her, He presses a hand to the small of her back, angling her until she fits between his hips, and groans into her mouth at the sensation. 

Her hands are gripping him too tight, her kisses inexpert, frantically trying to devour him and the noises she’s making are driving him mad. Deepening the kiss, he teases her mouth open with her tongue, desperate to taste her.

She parts her lips with a sigh and then he’s licking into her mouth, their tongues tangling, Sansa’s knees going weak so that he grabs for her before she hits the floor. She rubs against him, trying to get closer, tugging his hair to get him where she wants him, while her other hand goes up under the hem of his shirt, skating across hard muscles. 

Jon pulls back from her with a gasp, breathing heavily.

Sansa’s eyes flutter open. Her pupils are blown wide, her lips parted as she breathes, red and swollen from his kisses. She looks…she looks ravished.

Oh Gods, he thinks, oh, Gods. He steps back, releasing her, and then has to dive for her again as her knees buckle. She rests in the circle of his arms, catching her breathing, heartbeat steadying, and playing with the ends of his curls. 

“Jon,” she begins, her voice unsteady.

Jon pulls back from him, tries to show her how sorry he is. He sees her reach out a hand for him, attempt to hold him to her, and shakes his head, backing up another step. “I can’t,” he tells her. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” He turns and heads for the back door – _always have another way out, lad_ , Ser Rodrick’s voice, from a lifetime ago, echoes in his head.

He pauses at the door, can’t turn around to see her standing there, a dream not meant for him.

“Good-bye, Sansa.”

He does not look back.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be three separate scenes, but when I started writing this, I realized that Jon has a lot of baggage, a lot of baggage, that he needs to sort through before he allows himself to be happy. Time helps, and he’s started making the attempt, so I’m going to post this chapter as-is, although I’m not entirely happy with it. Maybe I’ll review it later this week and make some changes.
> 
> Otherwise, be prepared for a Part III showing two additional scenes. Please let me know what you think!


	3. The King Beyond the Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: Thank you so much for all of your kind words! As promised, here is Part III. Takes place a couple years after Sansa leaves Jon at Hardhome. Jon becomes Aragorn, the hidden king protecting the wilds of the North. You will pry this belief from my cold, dead hands, lol.

***

 

 

Jon and Arya gallop through Winterfell’s northern gate, the hooves of their horses pounding over spring-damp earth. Two dozen of Jon’s Rangers follow behind, clothed all in black like their leader, and Ghost brings up the rear. There are cries of welcome from the ramparts, a horn sounds from one of the towers, and the bells in Winter Town are ringing joyfully. Groomsmen run to take their mounts and Jon sees several people rushing into the keep, undoubtedly, to inform the queen of their unexpected arrival.

 

Winterfell is towering and whole once more, a far cry from the last time Jon saw her, when the castle was still broken and smoking from the Long Night. Now, close to eight years on from that time, Winterfell is returned to the height of her glory once more. The ancient stones seem to sing, their very presence pulling at Jon. _Home_ , they say. _Home_.

 

Arya is grinning so hard he can see most of her teeth. “There’s no place like it,” she says to him, swinging down from her mount and scratching Ghost behind the ear.  

 

His little sister is older, more beautiful, but still Arya. Her dark hair is longer than it used to be, worn once more in the half-up, half-down, braided-bun style she preferred before the Sack of King’s Landing. Her leathers are green and brown – perfect for blending into the wilds of the Far North – and her fur-lined, dark blue half-cloak still leaves her sword arm free to grasp Needle should she have need of it. She smiles more freely than he remembers, a rolling gait to her walk from years at sea.

 

She’d discovered new lands beyond the Western Sea, had adventures Jon could only dream of. And then, one day, almost a year ago now, he’d been tracking a band of Ironborn raiders through the Frostfangs, all the way up by the Giant’s Stair. He and a half-dozen Rangers had hunted them for a fortnight after they discovered the remains of a Wildling village the raiders had brutally murdered, raped and plundered.  

 

Jon had been standing in the long grasses before the Giant’s Stair, their greenish-brown stems rippling in the breeze. The land was dotted with hardy, towering pine trees, and the grasses themselves were filled with yellow evening stars and delicate-white Lady’s lace and blood-red Dragon’s breath. Several hundred feet ahead, the first of the ginormous stone steps which led up into the mountains, through the pass and into the Frostfangs, rose like a giant’s foot out of the land.

 

The air was crisp, still cool and fresh despite the vernal equinox having passed. He bent down to place a hand on the earth, feeling the vibrations, knowing his Rangers had spread out around him, invisible for the moment. The Ironborn were on the other side of the pass, making frantically for the sea and the settlements they were slowly attempting to build there.

 

Jon would teach them to leave the Free Folk in peace. They would all be brought to justice before the queen at Winterfell.

 

When he rose to his feet, Arya was standing before him, a wry smile on her face – older, crow’s feet beside her eyes, and head cocked to one side as she studied him. Her leathers were worn and dirty, and she looked tired, but she was hale and whole.

 

They stare at each other for a moment, the wind the only sound as it whipped down from the mountains and rippled through the grasses. Jon’s eyes drink her in, his heart pounding. Thank the gods she was safe.

 

His throat is tight as he swallows. “I’m surprised to see you all the way up here,” he told her, utterly inadequate to how he felt. He’d been afraid she would never come back Westeros after what she saw in King’s Landing. And he couldn’t blame her. The devastation wrought by dragonfire is something you never forget.

 

He can still feel how it was to be high in the air on Rhaegal’s back, nothing but him and the clouds, as thousands of wights burned at his command. It had been terrifying as much as he knew it had been necessary.

 

He can still taste the sick feeling of fear in his stomach that one wrong word from the Northerners, one more bit of defiance from Sansa, and Daenerys would have turned her dragonfire on Winterfell and the North; on all that he loved.

 

“I thought I’d see how my big brother was doing all alone up here,” Arya said. She still didn’t more towards him, her eyes as clear and cold and blue as Sansa’s. He remembers that she doesn’t like to be touched anymore, but he thinks that maybe…

 

Reaching out a leather-gloved hand, he steps forwards and brushes soothing fingers over her cheek. When she closes her eyes in relief, he pulls her to him, hugging her close and tight. Arya wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder as she always does.

 

He knows she is smiling, and he feels tears of relief fill his eyes. “I thought you might be angry with me,” she says, as she has a hundred times since she was a little girl. Arya got into more scrapes than Robb and Theon put together, and she usually got her big brothers involved along with her.

 

“Why would I be angry with you?” he asks, honestly surprised.  

 

Arya holds him tighter, fiercer. Her voice is muffled in his shoulder. He knows at least several of his Rangers are watching them. “Because I left. Because I left Sansa at Winterfell…and because I left all of you in King’s Landing.”

 

Jon kisses her forehead and tries to get her to look at him, brushing tears off her cheeks. “Why did you?” he asks quietly. Arya hadn’t said a word in the godswood, after Bran told her and Sansa Jon’s true name. Sansa’s expression had been unreadable, and he knew her quick mind had been going over every past interaction he’d had with…. everyone, since he’d found out.

 

But Arya – Arya had looked devastated. She’d looked confused and upset, and she hadn’t even come to say good-bye to him before he’d left for King’s Landing.

 

Jon still remembers turning around on his horse, at the top of the last rise before Winterfell vanished from view. The snow crunched underfoot, and the Northern army moved slowly, quietly, many still injured from the Long Night and everyone still heartbroken from loss and grief. Jon’s muscles ached and it felt like he was leaving behind all that made him Jon Snow.

 

But he knew Daenerys Targaryen, and she would not rest until she sat the Iron Throne. He could no longer delay her. He had sworn an oath to her, and it was time to honor the help she’d given the North.  

 

Yet still he couldn’t help but turn back for one last glimpse of home. Sansa’s bright hair was a beacon as she stood on the southern walls, and he had taken that last image of her with him all the way to the capital.

 

But there had been no one beside her. Arya had already gone.

 

Arya shifted, seemed to want to get away from him, but he held her fast. “You were leaving,” she said, glaring past his shoulder. “I came North for you, for our family, and as soon as you found out who you truly were…” she shifted her glare to him. “You chose _your queen_.” Venom still filled her voice when she spoke about Daenerys Targaryen.

 

 _You will always be my queen_ , he’d told his silver-haired aunt, his former lover, with his knife in her heart. It had been a lie, another betrayal, a last kindness as she died, as he’d done for Ygritte years before. It was what she’d wanted, what had driven her through terrible hardship, and all she’d cared about in the end.

 

He still doesn’t know if what he’d done, all that he’d done, from the moment he thrust his blade into Qhorin Halfhand’s heart and pretended to join the Free Folk, was right. Choice after choice and all it ever seemed to be, every choice he seemed to make, was a mistake.

 

But the years up North had lent a little clarity. “I wasn’t wrong to swear to her, to…lie with her –, ” he stumbled over his words a bit, still uncomfortable with their blood relationship, “to do all in my power to get her to help the North. And then to do all in my power to get her away from Winterfell after the Long Night was over.”

 

Arya had a mulish expression on her face, like she was seriously contemplating punching him. He still wouldn’t let her go.

 

“I was wrong to not tell you and Sansa the truth of what I feared from her,” Jon finished quietly.

 

Arya stilled, eyes studying his face. It had been a humbling experience to realize he should have asked his sisters for help. “I just…” finally he released Arya, scrubbed a hand down his face tiredly. “I hadn’t been there when you both needed me, and everything you went through after that…”

 

He blamed himself, he always would, for not being able to protect them; two little girls, alone, vulnerable, hunted and used. Arya’s eyes were huge.

 

“All I wanted to do was protect you both. And Bran.”

 

He studies her again – beautiful, capable and willful. He wonders if his father had as much trouble believing Lyanna Stark could take care of herself as he does with Sansa and Arya. Considering Robert’s Rebellion, he thinks Ned might have had the same difficulty.

 

“It is a hard thing to do, letting go of the instinct to protect your younger siblings,” Jon tells Arya, trying to smile at her, hoping his words are enough to convey some of what he’d been thinking.

 

Arya almost knocks him down from the force of her hug. She squeezes him so hard he thinks she might crack a rib. She’s always been so much stronger than she looks. “You’re an idiot,” she says and Jon laughs, relieved beyond words. Her hair smells like sea salt and a bit like fish. “None of what happened to Sansa and I was you fault,” she says fiercely. “None of it.”

 

She releases him but still studies him closely. It’s a searching looking reminiscent of Sansa and Jon can’t help the fierce pang of longing he feels for her presence. It has been so long.

 

“The thought of you up here in the North, of seeing you again someday…it’s what kept us both going,” Arya said. “We knew if we could just reach you, we’d be safe. And we were,” she finished firmly. Her smile was brilliant, all of Arya shining through for one brief instant.

 

“Now come on,” she said, tugging on his arm. “The Ironborn are less than a day ahead. You and your men know this terrain better than any of them. We can catch them.” They share a look and are in complete agreement.

 

At Jon’s signal, his men rise up all around them, invisible behind rocks and trees and in clumps of tall grasses, until they chose to reveal themselves.

 

Arya looks like a wolf on the hunt and Jon knows he must look the same. Jack Bulwer and Luke of Longtown, two of the most senior Rangers who each lead a party of four men, wait for Jon’s command.

 

Luke’s eyes flit towards the Giant’s Stair and he looks eager to be off. “We capture as many as we can alive,” Jon tells them, “and send them to the queen in the south for justice.”

 

No one looks askance at his orders; they’re too used to him by now.

 

Arya shakes her head. “You know Winterfell is in the North, right?” She sounds bemused.

 

The Rangers laugh and, after a moment, Arya joins in.

 

Now, back in Winterfell, a year after he and Arya reunited, Jon swings himself off his horse and looks around him at the bustling courtyard. Men, and a few women, practice in the training yards. They obviously notice his and Arya’s return, for although they give no overt sign, their sparring becomes more precise, more intense, the blows landing harder than just a practice should entail.

 

He looks at Arya and she rolls her eyes at him.

 

Dunstan, a Ranger from the Riverlands who has accompanied Jon to Winterfell, snorts when one of the girls swings wildly and overbalances, landing in the mud to the merry laughter of her peers. Janred of Lannisport, longer under Jon’s command than Dunstan, smacks the back of his younger companion’s head and heads over to the youths, leaning against the fence and calling out casual pointers to improve their stances.

 

“My lord?” A lady-in-waiting hesitantly touches Jon’s elbow to attract his attention. “The queen is currently in an audience, but she asks that I take you to her chambers and she will be with you shortly.”

 

Jon looks around but Arya has already vanished – Ghost disappearing as well – and with her goes his good mood. He remembers exactly why he’s ridden for Winterfell after all these years, why Arya thought it best to accompany him.

 

The raven had arrived a fortnight ago, the letter it carried saved by Tormund for as soon as Jon and Arya returned from their trip exploring the various passes of the Giant’s Stair.

 

_Sansa of House Stark, First of her name and Queen in the North, invites all eligible lords and noblemen to present their suit at Winterfell, for the choosing of a consort._

 

Jon follows the lady-in-waiting up into the keep, down the familiar, winding stone hallways, and into Sansa’s solar. Her rooms are no longer those of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn. These new rooms face north and west, with the northern mountains, extending from the wolfswood to the Wall, visible as tall, proud and jagged peaks from her windows.

 

The day is cool and cloudy and already hanging lanterns and tall candles have been lit in Sansa’s rooms.

 

The lady-in-waiting curtsies to Jon, says something, but he no longer registers her presence. After a moment she leaves, the door quietly clicking shut behind her.

 

Diaphanous curtains of silvery-grey and dark violet billow in the breeze from the huge open windows. There is one window in Sansa’s solar and another, Jon can just make out, in her bedroom. Beneath the one in the solar is a long, cushioned window bench. He imagines Sansa sitting there on rainy days, or when the snow is falling, and looking north. Towards him.

 

He laughs quietly, a small, slightly self-mocking laugh. If she did, would she be getting married?

 

Turning away from the window he takes in the room. Sansa’s room. It is a place filled with her presence. The solar is furnished with a desk neatly stacked with parchment and quills. Near a huge fireplace, a fire already crackling on the hearth, sit several chairs, perhaps for Sansa and her ladies. The chairs are of palest lavender, their cushions festooned with piles of cloth and thread, examples of delicate needlework.

 

There is only one tapestry on the wall, alongside the fireplace, but the few low tables, the mantlepiece and the desk have elegant candleholders, several beautifully carved figurines, and glass baubles twisted in unusual designs and blown in multiple colors. Beautiful flowers from Winterfell’s glass garden fill the vases doted about the room. A long chain of silver dragonflies is draped over the back of the desk chair.

 

The furniture is of all dark, northern wood, obviously not imported from Dorne or the Free Cities. The entire room feels light and airy and elegant, with a slight hint of austerity. It’s very Northern, very Stark, very Sansa.

 

Jon takes a closer look at the lone tapestry. And then he takes a second look, catching his breath.

 

The image is detailed and flawless, the colors vivid, vibrant and shaded. It was obviously a work that took many months, even years to complete.

 

A great, white direwolf stands amid a snowy landscape, its red eyes staring out fiercely towards the viewer. Behind him towers a giant wall of ice, blocking out the sky and stretching across the entire frame. And next to the wolf, one gloved hand buried in its white fir, and with another hand gripping a blade of Valyrian steel was…him.

 

Well, a version of him at least. The young man in the picture, his dark curls and pale skin, his haunted eyes and his black attire, looks like a prince out of legend. Jon knows he looks nothing like that.

 

He wonders if that is truly how Sansa sees him or if, ever the politician, that is how she seeks to portray him to those who come after. It must be difficult to rule when your brother is known as the Queenslayer after all. _Cousin_ , he thinks, firmly.   

 

“I commissioned stories and songs of you.” Sansa’s voice, clear, melodious and low, from behind him. “Hundreds of them. Telling what you’d done, how you saved the realm…even how you killed the woman you loved to protect your people. Azor Ahai reborn.”

 

Jon spins around to face her. She’s entered the room silently, the door singing slowly shut in her wake. She’s…stunning. Her vibrant hair tumbles down her back, part of it braided up in the northern style. Her dress is black, but soft and figure hugging, the armor she’d worn for so long now gone. A dragonfly pendant is pined at her throat and a single ring with a blood, red stone graces her hand. She’s even more beautiful than he remembers, her lips parted as she stares at him and her eyes are intense, bluer than a summer sky.

 

“A song tells a story better than rumor or truth ever could.” She’s watching him carefully, a wild beast come to rest on her door.

 

Jon can’t meet her gaze. “Where’s Arya?” he asks, like a fool. _The truth is always either terrible or boring_ , he remembers her telling him once.

 

Sansa makes a noise low in her throat, taking a step closer to him before seeming to change her mind and strides over to her desk instead. She shuffles through the papers there, no longer looking at him, and so Jon studies her again, helpless to look away for long now that she is here. “I spoke to Arya already,” Sansa says lightly. “She warned me that you are in a strange mood.”

 

“I am not in a mood!” Jon snaps, and Sansa makes that noise again. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and changes the conversation. “I’ve had word you’re getting married.” When he opens his eyes, Sansa is studying him once more, fiddling with the dragonfly chain on her chair, the blood, red ring on her finger catching the light.

 

“Really?” she says, deliberately light, coy, like a southron court lady. “That’s news to me. As far as I am aware, I’ve only asked to see my options.” She moves past him, moving towards the fireplace perhaps, and Jon reaches out to grab her arm. Pulls her around to face him.

 

Her hair swings out around her, rippling like a river of red-gold. _Kissed by fire_ , he thinks inconsequently.

 

She doesn’t try and pull away from him, her blue eyes watching him calmly, patiently. He tries to read her expression, figure out how she truly feels, but he’s never been very good at that. Sansa, for all that she has her lady mother’s coloring, has inherited their father’s reserved demeanor.

 

“You know what I mean,” he says, low, almost a growl.

 

“Do I?” still light, still coy, but with just a bit of a waiver to her voice. “I thought I did, once.”

 

“Sansa.” His voice, a plea, begging her. For understanding, he thinks. For trust. For something he dares not name. Now she pulls away from him, retreating to the window and the wide, cushioned bench, where she sits and stares out towards the mountains.

 

Jon slowly takes off his cloak, lays it on the back of one of the chairs by the fireplace. He unbuckles his sword and sheath, laying them both across the arms of the chair. He pulls off his leather gloves, one by one, all as he tries to think of what to say to her.

 

“I never loved her,” he says at last. Admiration and respect, yes. Attraction, yes. Love? Love is difficult to define at the best of times. He thinks he loved Ygritte. He’s always loved Sansa. It’s just that the feeling was so different with Sansa, so muddled by their past, by Sansa’s trauma and his own desire to never hurt her, by his own feelings of guilt, his belief for the longest time that he saw her as his sister and nothing else.

 

“You could have fooled me,” Sansa says, still not looking at him. Her hands are restless like birds, twisting in her lap.

 

“Good.” One word, harsh.

 

Sansa’s gaze flits back to him, one quick look, seeing to the core of him.

 

“I needed everyone to believe I was in love with her. _I_ needed to believe it.”

 

Sansa turns away again. “What does it matter now, anyway?” Her voice is back to calm, cool efficiency. “You have what you wanted: your freedom in the North. And I have my duty to continue my House.”

 

_‘My House,’ not ‘our House.’_

 

Jon can’t help but take a step towards her. “That doesn’t mean you have to marry.” His voice is too frantic, too passionate, and Sansa’s hands still. He can see the furrow in her brow from here. “I mean, it doesn’t require that you have to marry some lord you don’t even know. That you don’t even love.”

 

Gods, he has no idea what she actually wants anymore. _Jonquil and Florian the Fool. Jenny of Oldstones and her Prince of Dragonflies_. He thought he did, but then why would she write those invitations? _Queen Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight_ , he thinks.

 

“No one will ever marry me for love,” Sansa says then, and the quiet certainty in her voice is enough to make him want to weep, or to fight the entire world for breaking his sister of her dreams.

 

“They might,” he insists, taking another, useless step towards her.

 

Sansa’s laugh is light and musical and utterly devoid of warmth. “They will see only my name and my face, the face of Ned Stark’s daughter, of the queen in the North, and that will be that,” she says. “But at least I’ll get an heir. My people need an heir.”

 

Jon growls, stalks towards her and reaches for her hand, holding it tightly in his. He kneels on the window seat above her. “And what do you need?” he asks. _I would give you anything you ask_ , he thinks, watching the light play across her face, the breeze moving fiery strands of hair across her face. He aches to touch her, pull her close.

 

Sansa laughs again. It’s a harsh laugh for all that it holds genuine amusement this time. She watches him like a hawk. “You seek to give it to me?” she asks. “What I _need_?” she clarifies, mockingly, all haughty condescension, and Jon pulls his hand back, stung.

 

“What?” he asks. He’d thought –

 

“I won’t take something not freely offered,” Sansa says, raising her chin and staring him down, every inch a queen. “I don’t want or need your pity.”

 

Jon pulls back even more and stares at her, scrubbing a hand down his face and through his beard as he tries to follow the paths her thoughts have taken to the conclusion she’s obviously reached. “Sansa,” he begins slowly.

 

She stands up, tries to back away from him. “Just leave it alone,” she says. “I don’t know why you’ve come. You’ve made it quite clear that you don’t’ –.” Her voice breaks and she hurriedly turns, staring out the window to hide the sudden tears in her eyes. Sansa, who never shows any emotion that betrays weakness. Not anymore.

 

Jon is still confused, but his every instinct is telling him to not let her retreat from him. He stands and pulls her close, flush against him. She’s tall and beautiful, every inch a lady and a queen. And his sister. But most importantly, she’s Sansa. She’s watching him wide-eyed again, hands fisted in his tunic as though she’s not sure whether she wants to pull him closer or push him away.

 

“I’m older now, less of a fool, perhaps. I know what I want, gods help me,” he says, before he bends down and kisses her.  

 

It’s a rough kiss, too rough, demanding and forceful. Yet Sansa gasps into his mouth, opening instantly under him, lips sweet and soft. She twists her hands up into his hair, arching up into his arms as he pulls her even tighter against him. Her skirts brush over his boots, entangle about his legs. He has her pushed against the wall of her tower, the gauzy curtains blowing around them, the start of a late-spring snowfall just begun.

 

“Oh,” Sansa says, breathless, parting from him for only a second as she brushes shaking fingers over his cheeks, across the bridge of his nose. Her blue eyes are shocked and she’s staring at him like she’s never seen him before.

 

She’s in his arms; so close that he can smell the warmth of her skin, see the faint lines at the corners of her eyes. He feels like he is burning, like he can’t get close enough to her, like if he doesn’t bury himself in her, feel her surrounding him utterly, he might burn alive like a victim of Melisandre’s fires.

 

“Sansa.” His voice catches and breaks, and he squeezes his eyes shut as he exhales shakily, tries to warn her away. _If we do this, I’ll never be able to let you go_ , he thinks and some of that tortured truth must show when he opens his eyes, fixes their tormented depths on hers.

 

She reaches up to cup his face as though she’s in a dream, even as he tries to release her, tries to will himself to let her go. It would be best for both of them if she forgot him, found some dimwitted younger son of a lord to wed – someone who would be no threat to her claim.

 

 _You were a fool to come,_ he thinks, but oh gods, how could he stay away.

 

He’s hard and aching, his blood pounding in his veins, and the warmth of her in his arms is intense, intoxicating. Heat pools in his gut and he swallows as her fingers brush over his lips, skate down his throat. “Sansa,” he tries again, helpless as she licks her lips, her eyes fixed on his.

 

Sansa’s eyes are fierce as she glares up at him, pupils blown wide. “You’re mine, Jon and I….” Her lips crash messily against his, her arms pulling him close again, a hopeless tangle of lips and limbs and tongues. Jon gasps at the sudden, burning heat that rolls through him again, groans into her mouth as Sansa palms him through his trousers.

 

He curses, hips jerking into her touch, and Sansa laughs delightedly against his lips. Her fingers are fumbling at his laces. “Please, Jon,” she breathes. Her hands are grasping at him desperately, eyes opening wide and frantic into his. I need you, is what she can’t say, what Jon can read in every brush of her lips, the pounding of her heart against his, the strength of her arms around his neck.

 

He hauls her up into his arms, stumbling across the room through to her bedroom, before tumbling them both onto the fur blankets. He pulls back to look at the high color on her cheeks, the burning want in her eyes, and then he’s bending down, claiming her lips in his again, plundering her mouth.

 

Her hips are cradling him, her fingers having found a way past his laces. One hand wraps around him, stroking along his length as she learns the feel of him, arching her entire body up into him at the same time, tongue stroking into his mouth, so all he can feel is her.

 

He moans again, fumbling with her shirts, hiking them above her knees and pulling her small clothes down.

 

His fingers stroke her open, slowly, gently, learning what she likes from the feel of her gasps against his lips. Sansa is writing in his arms, his own world narrowed now to the feel of her hand on him, his blood pounding in his ears, and the wet feel of her against his fingers.

 

He pulls back from her, ducking his head, and licking into her in the way that had Ygritte moaning with pleasure. When he finds just the right spot, he presses a finger into her, watching as she shatters in his arms, his name on her lips.  

 

When she catches her breath, she tugs on his hair, bringing him back up so she can kiss him again. She helps him pull his trousers and small clothes down, her fingers going back to stroking him, dancing up and down his shaft.

 

For a moment he wishes he’d had the patience to get her naked, longs to feel every inch of her skin. Then she gives a cunning twist with her hand and all he can think about is being inside her.

 

He almost comes apart in her hands, groaning, biting her lip too hard. He feels like he’s devouring her, and he tries to pull back, slow down, see if she’s alright. He _knows_ she hasn’t done this since Ramsay.

 

But Sansa won’t let him, nipping at his lip in turn, wriggling under him, hands leaving him as he feels his blunt head brushing against the wet heat of her.

 

“Please, Jon,” she begs him again, knowing he can deny her nothing. She arches up off the bed again, kissing him wildly. “I need you,” she gasps, between kisses.

 

Jon grips her hard, angling her hips, and with a groan sinks into her.

 

For a moment they’re both completely still, panting, Jon trying not to come immediately just from how tight she is around him.

 

Sansa whimpers. “Fuck,” she breathes, so shockingly that Jon laughs and can’t help but kiss her again. Her own breathless laughter breaks off and she bites her lip, shaky moans escaping her as Jon sets up a brutal pace, drives them both over the edge so suddenly that all he can do is hold onto her, face buried in her shoulder.

 

He falls asleep after that, can’t seem to help himself from drifting off. It had been a hard ride to Winterfell, Jon pushing both himself and his men. Only Arya had seemed unaffected, though she watched him with bemused amusement which he was only now beginning to understand.

 

He wakes still in Sansa’s arms, his softened cock inside her. Evening has fallen and the room is soft, muted, filled with the flickering, golden light of a dozen candles.

 

“Sorry,” he rasps, embarrassed, and tries to pull away from her, but Sansa merely tightens her grip.

 

“Don’t,” she says softly, fingers stroking soothingly through his hair. “I love the feeling of having you…so close.”

 

And gods help him if that didn’t make him start to harden in her again. He pushes himself up on his arms to look down at her.

 

Her fingers can’t seem to stop touching him. _I’m not alone anymore_ , she doesn’t say, but Jon can read it in the way her eyes take him in, as though trying to memorize his every feature.

 

He thinks of her alone in this place which had once been filled with their family, thinks of Robb in Winterfell’s courtyard with snow in his hair, thinks of Bran climbing the walls and Rickon chasing after him and Arya. He thinks of Old Nan and Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik Cassel. He thinks of their father sitting in the Great Hall, Theon beside him, Lady Catelyn walking up and down the hallways and Uncle Benjen riding down from Castle Black.

 

He thinks of all that they lost. He strokes Sansa’s hair back from her face and pulls out of her gently. “I can’t stay,” he tells her, brushing his fingers over her cheek, across her eyelids, down the bridge of her nose. The lords of the South would never accept him remaining at Winterfell – his Targaryen heritage, his own actions have made him a pariah once more. The North needs their goodwill if it wants to survive as an independent kingdom; they are too few since the Wars and the Long Night.

 

“I know,” Sansa says simply, rolling him over onto his back and climbing on top of him. She begins to divest him of his clothing. Jon holds her hips and can’t help but admire how beautiful she is in this moment. Guilt and desire and love churn in his gut, the knowledge that she’s his sister, will always be his sister, is sickening and helplessly arousing by turns. He strokes the bare flesh of her hips as she pulls her dress up over her head, her glorious river of red hair tumbling down around her shoulders.

 

She is radiant. She always has been.

 

He supposes he’s always desired that which was forbidden to him anyway.

 

Sansa is studying him, her eyes dark with desire but still clear and kind, too smart for her own good. She looks happy. He entwines their fingers together.

 

“I am yours,” she tells him, looking unsure and defiant and beautiful all at the same time. She pulls his hand up to cup her breast. “And you are mine.” A promise. Defiance to the world, to the gods themselves.

 

Jon shivers. _Queen Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight_ , he thinks deliriously. He looks at Sansa again, sees the strength in her. _No_ , he thinks, _something new. Something better_. He kisses her and finally lets go.

 

Later, with Sansa a warm, pliant weight in his arms, Jon goes over her words again. Stroking her hair, a fire crackling in the hearth and Ghost asleep on the rug, Jon studies the tapestry of himself hanging in Sansa’s solar.

 

 _I commissioned hundreds of stories and songs about you_ , she’d said.

 

 _The Northern lords call her the Kingmaker_ , Arya told him months ago. _They whisper that it was her words to Lyanna Mormont which made you King in the North, her words to Tyrion Lannister which unmade the Dragon Queen._

_She doesn’t have that much power,_ Jon had said, shaking his head. Dany’s actions had not been Sansa’s fault.

_No,_ Arya agreed, smiling _, but she changes the world by changing the way people think. Haven’t you noticed? She tells a story and she makes the world better._ Arya shrugged. _She just uses words and time not dragonfire and death. Instead of forcing people to her will, she lets them come to the right conclusion themselves._

Jon thinks of how two years ago he’d ridden South with a handful of Rangers. News had come that Bran had been kidnapped by Lannister holdouts while on a tour of the Six Kingdoms. Jon had ridden south, rescued his brother, and either executed the rebels or taken them with him back to the Wall and the Far North.

 

He had escorted Bran all the way back to King’s Landing. The crowds had been silent and watchful as Jon and his black-garbed men moved through the streets towards what was now the Summer Palace.

 

But he had seen more than one person respectfully flick their fingers at the small, ragged procession. At the time he’d thought it was for Bran; now he’s not so sure. He remembers the eyes on him, the stares at Ghost prowling along at his side. One small girl had even reached out to gently pet the giant, white direwolf, and Ghost had licked her.

 

Last Midsummer, traders from Oldtown brought the story of Jon’s rescue of his brother with them to Hardhome. Only they called Bran the Steward of the South in their tale, and now Jon thinks of Sansa’s stories – of hidden kings and ice monsters, of queens kissed by fire, of forbidden love, of heroes.

 

 _Sansa’s the smartest person I’ve ever met_ , Arya said, and Jon knows it’s true.

 

He wonders if the story she tells of him is just a story, or if it could truly be how she really sees him; as a hero.

 

He doesn’t feel like a hero, isn’t sure if he knows right from wrong anymore – Is loving Sansa, his sister, wrong? – but he would believe it if Sansa told him it was true.

 

He holds her close, breathes in the scent of her – lemons and roses.

 

Jon Snow finally sleeps.

 

***

 

Jon stands before the heart tree, a surprise summer snow falling around him and around Bran, quiet and solemn in his chair. The world is white and pure and lovely, shades of grey and dark green just peeking through the snow. Overhead rustle the deep red leaves of the weirwood tree.

 

“There is talk,” Bran says, in his clear, inflectionless voice, “of the Vale and the Riverlands joining with the North.”

 

Jon shifts in place, the pummel of Longclaw digging into his side. His hair is long and loose as Sansa likes it best. His tunic is black, as is his cloak, and it’s pinned in place with two silver direwolves meeting in the middle.

 

He wonders if Robb felt this nervous when he said his vows with Talisa Maegyr. Sam, dressed in the robes of a teacher and scholar at Tion Daria – the Northern University town Sansa has founded –, gives him a reassuring smile when Jon looks over at him.

 

“Really?” Jon answers his brother, not caring in the slightest. It’s Sansa’s job, and Bran’s job now, to care about the lands south of the Wall.

 

“The smallfolk feel that their interests align more with the North than the South,” Bran continues. “They’ve been sending representatives to the King’s Council for years now. The lords, however, continue to align with the South.”

 

Jon can’t tell if Bran disapproves of this or not. The King’s Council is what the smallfolk call the annual meeting of Northern lords that arrive every year within a fortnight of the anniversary of the Battle of Winterfell.

 

Sansa gives a report on the overall health and prosperity of the North, the lords discuss any problems, suggestions or complaints they may have, and any of the smallfolk with a grievance against their lord has the right to present their grievance and ask for a verdict to be decided by the Queen.

 

Sansa is quickly earning a reputation for fairness and justice.

 

There are quick footsteps on the snow and Gendry Baratheon joins them. “Another couple of minutes,” he says to Jon, coming to stand by his side. “Arya and Gilly kicked me out.”

 

Gendry and Arya have an understanding, which is more than Jon can say he has about their relationship. Whatever makes them happy is alright with him, but he wishes they would at least let him know what that was.

 

“The lords of the Stormlands occasionally talk of joining the North,” the Lord of Storm’s End says, having apparently caught the tail end of their conversation. “But it’s mostly because they want to be able to study at Tion Daria.” He nods at Jon and Bran. “Your sister is really putting money into it. They say that they even teach magic there.” _Tion Daria_ , Jon thinks. _High Valyrian for ‘city of the queen.’_

 

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Bran says, so seriously that Jon has no idea if he’s joking or not.

 

There’s an awkward moment of silence as Jon, Gendry and Sam all look at each other, trying to decide. Jon clears his throat. “Where’s Little Sam and Jon Tarly?” he asks. The boys are teenagers now, strapping lads who love to ride and hunt as Sam never did.

 

Sam himself was kicked out of the Citadel when it was discovered he had a family, but Sansa offered him a place at her new University. Tion Daria doesn’t have the same restrictions on teachers and scholars as the Maesters do, and Sam’s family all live in the University.

 

“Oh, they’re around somewhere,” Sam says, preoccupied with leafing through his book and going over the words again. He seems nervous, which Jon finds a bit much, given that he’s the one getting married, not Sam.

 

The godswood is still and silent, Ghost patiently waiting by Jon’s side. Winterfell is mostly empty at this time of year, the Northerners going back to their farms and lands high in the mountains or in the wolfswood, or across the Northern plains. Their wedding is to be a simple, secret affair, and for that Jon is thankful. An open marriage to him is not something the Queen in the North can afford.

 

Quiet footsteps on snow and Gilly and Arya arrive, escorting Sansa. Her dress is made of pure white feathers, pearls in her ears and around her neck, and even tiny diamonds, twinkling like stars, woven through her hair.

 

She is absolutely stunning, and Jon’s hand is trembling as he reaches out to take hers before the heartree. “Are you sure?” he asks her, and Sansa just smiles.

 

He must say the words, must marry her before the heartree, before the old gods and the new, for the next thing he’s aware of is her lips on his, her vows in his ear. _My king_ , she calls him.

 

“I love you, Jon,” she whispers, her voice wavering.

 

Jon closes his eyes and holds onto her hard. “Now and always,” he says.

 

“Now and always,” she echoes.

 

Her gift to him is a batch of dragon eggs, given to him in his solar later that night. “One of Lord Cerwyn’s people found them, a year or so after the Long Night. Sam and I think they must have been laid by either Drogon or Rhaegal. I’ve been keeping them warm but so far they haven’t shown any sign of hatching.” Her smile is gently teasing, but there’s something behind it that’s not teasing at all.

 

A belief that he can do the impossible. Jon stares at her wide eyed. “Maybe they will hatch for you,” Sansa says, handing him an egg. Jon holds the warm, smooth surface of the dragon egg and finds he’s holding his breath.

 

Nothing happens. After a moment he starts laughing and soon Sansa joins in.

 

“Maybe someday,” Sansa says.

 

Jon doesn’t bother to argue with her.

 

 

***

 

 

Jon holds his firstborn in his arms; a daughter, with dark, almost black hair, and eyes of a haunting, blue-violet color. She looks like Arya.

 

“Lyanna,” Sansa whispers, awestruck, from where she leans tiredly against Jon’s side. She strokes a gentle finger across her daughter’s cheek. “Lyanna Stark.”

 

And Jon Snow smiles.

 

***

 

 

The smallfolk of the Seven Kingdoms tell many tales of House Stark – of Brandon Stark the Wizard, the Steward of the South and Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North. They whisper fantastic stories about Arya of the Many Faces. Of Winterfell, home of the Kings and Queens of Winter, and Tion Daria, the hidden city where wizards are trained. 

 

They talk of giants beyond the Wall, and trees that whisper to one another and wolves as big as horses. They say the old tales yet live in the North. Some even send their sons and daughters to Timpa Zokla, the white city which the Northmen call Dragonreach. According to the stories, it is located high in the Northern mountains and is where dragonriders go to live and soar the skies.

 

And always they speak of the King Beyond the Wall as a hope and a promise. The saying, _when the king returns_ , enters many lands.

 

The smallfolk say that the queen in the North is as beautiful as the dawn, that she is wise and gracious, and that her children were fathered by a white wolf – _Lyanna. Robb. Eddard: the heirs of Winterfell_.

 

They say that there is a strain of old blood in the Starks, of ice and fire – a magic that rises when Westeros needs them most.

 

They say the king will come again.

 

The End

 

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was going to have the confrontation about Daenerys be between Jon and Sansa at first, but then as I was writing it, it seemed like Arya had a lot of unresolved feelings and it felt right to have the person who knows Jon best finally break through his walls and learn the truth.
> 
> Plus, Jon and Sansa had to fight about her getting married, and that was more fun. Reminded me of Lizzy and Mr. Darcy in a way, full of misunderstandings and thinking the other person didn’t like them, and the other party freaking out at marriage rumors regarding their beloved, lol. 
> 
> I also tried to incorporate Tyrion’s ideas on the power of stories at the end, but I thought that more rightly fit Sansa and her journey rather than Tyrion or Bran. Please let me know what you think, and as always thank you so much for reading!


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